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Individualism is reason for UMC ‘professions’ decline


BY ANDREW C. THOMPSON UMR Columnist


It’s never a good idea to see how


the sausage gets made. At least that’s the conventional wisdom. I tested that particular piece of


wisdom a few days ago. I actually ended up glad I saw sausage-making firsthand. The “sausage” in


this instance was the conferencing process that ulti- mately governs the United Methodist Church. Next spring the General Confer- ence will meet in Tampa, Fl. And as a way to begin prepar- ing for that quadrennial event, all the annual conference delegations of the South Central Jurisdiction (one of the five Methodist jurisdictions in the United States) met together in Okla- homa City. All of what I saw was informative,


Andrew Thompson


and some of it was invigorating. In two days of intense conferenc-


ing, one of the most striking presen- tations given was by Don House. Mr. House is the chairman of the SCJ episcopal committee. Mr. House presented his case for


the need we have for sustained church growth, in many areas but particu- larly in church membership. He noted the number of measures


that show a decline in the church over the past few decades. Total church membership and worship attendance are two that are often cited. The one standard of measure that


he is most concerned about is the de- cline in professions of faith. The church in the U.S. has seen a 31.3% decrease in professions of faith since 1995. To understand the significance of


what Mr. House was trying to get across, we have to ask ourselves the question, “What exactly is a profes- sion of faith?”


Zero-sum game The key point about professions of


faith is that they are instances of per- sons joining a local church by some- thing other than infant baptism or transfer-of-membership from an- other church. Our Book of Discipline lays out the meaning of a profession of faith in ¶217: “When persons unite


as professing members with a local United Methodist church, they pro- fess their faith in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth; in Jesus Christ his only Son, and in the Holy Spirit. Thus, they make known their desire to live their daily lives as disciples of Jesus Christ. They covenant together with God and with the members of the local church to keep the vows which are a part of the order of confirmation and reception into the Church.” Profession of faith is a key compo-


nent of membership in the church for a denomination, like ours, that be- lieves strongly in infant baptism. When an infant is baptized, it is the faith of Christ and the faith of the church that makes possible the sacra- mental response to the grace of God. A profession of faith, on the other hand, is the response of that baptized person once she or he reaches an age where such response is practicable. The reason that the decline in pro-


fessions of faith is so crucial to Mr. House is because it is through such means that the church grows. Trans- fers of membership are a zero-sum game: one congregation’s loss is an- other’s gain. But professions of faith represent new additions to the house- hold of faith.


‘We resist identifying ourselves as fundamentally connected to larger groups …’


The concern Mr. House was rais-


ing should be a concern common to all of us. We live in a country with an expanding population. If we believe the gospel is really good news, there is no reason why our own church should not be expanding as well. But we’re not expanding on the


whole. We’re contracting. And that means we have a significant problem. There are surely many reasons


why our professions of faith seem to be lacking. We need to question our own commitment to evangelism. But we also need to look seriously at cul- tural factors working against us.


NOVEMBER 4, 2011 | UNITED MET HODI S T REPORTER I think two of the most significant


are twin trends that are dangerous to the church: individualism and priva- tization.


Tough trends Individualism identifies all of life’s


value at the level of the individual himself. Our culture embraces a fairly radical version of it. The ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras is known for his saying, “Man is the measure of all things.” Well, individu- alism takes that view a step further and holds that every individual man (or woman) gets to measure all things. Privatization is another cultural


trend that is the inevitable companion to individualism. We resist identifying ourselves as fundamentally connected to larger groups, so we tend to see value as possessed by us personally. Sounds a little complicated, I


know. But it’s not. What I mean is sim- ply this: As an individual, I get to de- cide the worth of a given thing. It is all a matter of my personal opinion. And once I decide, the value I attach to that thing belongs to me and me alone. I don’t have to explain it to you, and I don’t even have to admit it to you. If you are starting to make the


connections between this sort of thinking and the resistance to con- fessing one’s faith publicly, then you’re on the right track. The twin forces of individualism and privati- zation lead people to believe some- thing like this: “My belief in God is something private to me. It can nei- ther be called into question by any- one else nor can it be called upon for public witness unless I decide that of my own free will.” It all sounds perfectly democratic


and libertarian. To American ears, it has a nice ring. But it is also a deeply anti-biblical point of view. Nothing in Scripture or the tradition of the church supports such an individual- ized and privatized faith. Mr. House is right to focus on the


need to buck the trend against declin- ing professions of faith. But to do that, we have to realize what we’re up against. It is nothing less than revers- ing a powerful cultural trend that is making the individual reign supreme.


The Rev. Thompson is an instructor in historical theology & Wesleyan studies at Memphis Theological Seminary. Reach him at athompson @MemphisSeminary.edu.


Want church growth? Be willing to take risks


BY TOM ARTHUR Special Contributor


I’ve been experimenting with ways


to grow my church. I know “church growth” is sometimes a bad word for us mainliners, but at its best, church growth is about making disciples of Jesus Christ. So I went with my wor- ship leader, Jeremy, to Michigan State University’s campus and tried to hand out worship invite cards to students. This was way out of my comfort


zone, but I was asking my congrega- tion to push themselves, and I thought I ought to push myself, too. I found it a lot easier to tack the invite cards up on bulletin boards than hand them out to people, but we did both. Our expectations were not very


high. We hoped that after handing out a couple hundred cards that we’d get at least one person to show up. We waited anxiously on Sunday morning hoping our low expectations might be surpassed. The results: not one new person


showed up! So much for growing our church through invitation.


“OK” as we are. Take for example our typing


speed. Most of us plateaued with our typing speed a long time ago, be- cause we got fast enough to accom- plish our daily tasks with little inconvenience. But if you want to get off the OK plateau and increase your speed, you have to plan to fail. Set a metronome to a speed just slightly faster than you can successfully type without errors. Then analyze your er- rors and look for patterns of mis- takes. Make appropriate fixes, and pretty soon you’re off the OK plateau and typing faster than you did be-


‘Our eyes were being opened and our imaginations were being stretched, but the only way we got there was by risking failure.’


Not so. What Jeremy and I realized


as we walked around the MSU cam- pus (with a growing sense of futility about our method) was that this was the very first time in my two years of being a pastor at this church that we had actually gotten out of our office and walked around the community imagining how to build relationships. We really hadn’t real- ized how inward fo- cused we had become until we walked among these students on campus. Our eyes were being opened and our imaginations were being stretched, but the only way we got there was by risking failure. And fail we did. Failure is a key to growth. Joshua


fore. To grow, you have to plan to fail. With the MSU campus experi-


ment, Jeremy and I were giving our- selves an opportunity to fail. We spent lunch time that day analyzing our mistakes and suggesting fixes. The next week I showed up on


Tom Arthur


campus with a to-go box of coffee from a well-known local coffee shop. I handed coffee out for free. While I didn’t pass out nearly as many cards, I did actually have several conversa- tions with students and began seeing new possibilities that I hadn’t seen be- fore. On my second week, I actually had a student give me his e-mail to send him information about our pub group meetings. I don’t know where this all will


lead us, but I’m doing my best at being OK with failing. It’s the only way to grow.


Foer, in his book, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Re- membering Everything, introduced me to the OK plateau,” a place where we are no longer risking failure. We don’t take risks anymore, because we’re


The Rev. Arthur is pastor of Sycamore Creek Church, a worshiping congregation of the United Methodist Church in Lansing, Mich. Reprinted from Faith & Leadership (www.faithandleadership.com).


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